


Danny and the Blue Jungle

by Foodmoon



Series: Partner and Pain in the Neck [4]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010), The Sentinel
Genre: Excessive Author's Notes, Gen, M/M, Mentions of Death and Violence, Platonic Relationships, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 17:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13552365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foodmoon/pseuds/Foodmoon
Summary: Danny wakes up in a place he doesn't recognize. But that's not what worries him.





	Danny and the Blue Jungle

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes are mine.

Danny wakes in a blue jungle. Which is creepy and weird, because even Danny knows jungles aren’t supposed to be blue, and if the jungle is blue that means there’s blue pineapples, and that’s just too much horror to contemplate. But if feels like he’s been here before _(when is a mystery)_ and that he’s not in any danger for the moment. So that’s not the problem.

No, the problem is that he can hear Steve crying, but he can’t see him.

He gets to his feet and looks around, but he can’t see anything except more blue jungle, and the sound of crying is close enough that he should be able to at least get a hint. Except he can’t. He can’t even tell which direction it’s coming from. It’s not like it is coming from everywhere, so it has a direction, Danny just can’t pinpoint it.

Then, suddenly, Lunatic is there, wrapping himself around Danny’s throat like the alien-blue-monkey-limpet he is, and the jungle snaps into focus. _(And suddenly a blue monkey-thing makes so much more sense, and Danny wonders briefly if spirit animal manifestations have anything to do with a personality’s preconceptions. God knows that Steve certainly doesn’t have any preset expectations, so it would make perfect sense that his spirit animal is a true creature of the blue jungle rather than one that shapes its form to the subconscious needs of its person.)_ A focus he hadn’t even been aware it lacked. And Steve is right there, curled up in a lanky ball, sobbing his heart out.

Danny knows what this is about.

A couple hours before dark, Steve’s complete and utter bitch of a mother had stopped by. For some reason, the woman seems to have an almost rabid phobia of Sentinels and Guides and considers them to be abominations. Which she makes sure to tell Steve as often as possible. Nice, huh? Telling your own son that he’s an abomination? _(Of course this is the same woman who abandoned her kids and husband without a word to save her own hide, not caring they might end up as targets as well. Who was indirectly responsible for her husband’s death, and is smug as fuck over the fact that he died still mourning her instead of guilty that she got him killed.)_ But this time she’d gone so far as to suggest that Steve should break Lunatic’s neck and get Danny out of his life.

(“Why don’t you get rid of that sickening monkey? Snapping its neck will put it out of its misery and it won’t feel a thing. Then you can dispose of tha- You can drop your unnatural relationship with that _cop-”_ ) As if cop is a slur? He’s an excellent cop, thank you very much. At least he’s not a psychotic ex-CIA assassin who thinks it is okay to make her kids miserable. (“And everything will go back to normal.”)

Steve had thrown her out, but it was easy to see that she was just planning her next round of poisonous words and had no intention of staying away.

And okay, he’d been planning to get a restraining order against her, because he’s pretty sure that constitutes a threat to a spirit animal and a Guide under SGC laws, and as Steve’s registered (if not actual) Guide, he has the authority to file for it on Steve’s behalf. He’s definitely going to do that in the morning. Because Steve is crying, and that is _so not all right._

“Hey, babe. You okay?”

“Danno?” Steve’s voice is rough and raw, and filled with devastation.

And this- _**This is unforgivable.**_ Danny’s not going to stop with a mere restraining order. He’s going to get her selfish ass kicked off the islands. Permanently. _(He’s pretty sure the Governor will be happy to go along with him on this.)_ No one gets to reduce his lunatic partner to this state.

And if she comes back?

Well, he doesn’t _like_ breaking the law, but he’s willing to make an exception and put a hit out on her. _(He’s pretty sure he can get SGC laws to stretch far enough to only get a slap on the wrist if anyone traces it back to him.)_

Okay, so maybe he’ll just shoot her a little and let her stew in the fact that she has no control over her son’s life because she forfeited any rights long ago, and Steve’s an adult now anyways. Then he won’t even have to try to explain his actions to Grace and Rachel, because they both hate her anyways. _(Rachel can be a bitch, but she won’t stand for others talking down the father of her child. And saying anything the least negative about ‘her Danno’ is a sure way to earn Grace’s eternal enmity. Danny knows where Steve got his smarts, because it definitely wasn’t from his mother.)_

Danny crouches and runs a gentle hand over the short hair. “Yeah, babe.”

Sad, sad eyes crack open to stare at him. “My mom threatened you, Danno. How can she do that?”

He snorts and sits down beside Steve _(not cross-legged, he’d never get up again)._ “So here’s the thing, babe. That’s not your mom. That’s a biological donor who made the choice to not be your mom. She’s a freaking assassin. She could have gone after Wo Fat and any others who were a danger to her family. But she didn’t. She chose to save her own skin and not risk it again. Even when your dad died. That’s not the actions of a mother or wife. That’s what we call a sociopath. So there’s no reason for you to be buying her line of BS. You hear me, babe?”

“But-”

Danny sighs loudly. “Babe. You know she can’t harm Lunatic, right? It’s just not possible.”

“Yeah, but-”

“No, babe. You’re not thinking about this right. Remember what Lunatic did to that one perp? Has it even occurred to you what he’d do to her if she tried to harm me?”

“But sniper rifles.”

“Wasn’t it you who took your mother and sister out on a family bonding exercise to the _naval gun range_ and came back whining about how shit they both are with rifles?”

“Huh.” Steve’s expression lightens, and he abruptly sits up. “Danno! You’re awake!”

“Yeah? So?”

“You’re awake here!”

Danny looks around. Yup. Still blue jungle. Still weird. Still nothing jumping out at him _(except Lunatic, who doesn’t count),_ trying to eat him. It’s probably some Sentinel safe-place that Steve has dragged him into by sheer force of will. Sentinels are weird, but Steve’s even weirder than most. “You tryin’ to tell me something, babe?”

Steve gets a classic _‘Oh, shit! Backpedal! Backpedal!’_ look on his face. “Uh. No?”

“Babe, you are a shitty, shitty liar.” Danny informs him mildly, actually kind of interested by a jungle that he doesn’t need to have a healthy _oh-shit-we’re-gonna-die_ fear of. _(Though if a blue King Kong shows up, he reserves the right to healthy fear, even if it means no harm, because all men should have a healthy fear of King Kong level beasts, even if Grace would think it the ultimate teddy bear and telling her that apes aren’t bears would be ignored to the nth degree.)_ Other than Lunatic, whose fur he scritches absently, he doesn’t see any sign of animal life beyond a few mostly blue butterflies flitting around a few trees. And don’t think he’s not grateful for that, because he really, really is, safe haven or no. “So, babe. How many times have you brought me here?”

“Uh.”

He turns his head to stare at him until he squirms. “Steve?”

“Youjustcomehere sometimeswhenyou’re asleep. Is all.” Steve mumbles, running the words together in his hurry to blurt them out. There’s a pause. And then he adds in a small voice, “You’re not mad?”

Danny shrugs. He probably would be mad if Steve had just dragged him here to try to prove he was a Guide or something, but he can’t be mad seeing it when he’s here because _Steve was crying_ and Danny was able to help. Steve is crazy, but he’s _Danny’s crazy,_ so help him God. He’s not going to get mad over a blue jungle if it helps Steve not die inside over his mother. “Seems like a nice enough place. But if there’s pineapples, all bets are off.”

Steve laughs a little, and that’s a good sound to hear.

“Speaking of mothers, you’ve never met mine, have you? She’s been talking about coming out here and ‘meeting her new son’. That’s you, by the way. She’s gonna want to know all about you, babe. And I do mean _all about you._ And she’s gonna want to know all about this blue jungle thing too, so it’s your funeral if you mention it to her, y’know? And if she meets _your_ sad excuse for a mother, I won’t even have to file a restraining order against her cuz she’ll be tucking tail and scurrying back into hiding so fast that there’ll be tracks. Not that it’ll do her any good, because my mom is the best about finding every hiding place in existence. It really sucked when playing hide and seek, y’know? I even forgot to tell her I was moving to Hawaii and she found my phone number the day after I got a new one, which was only two weeks after I moved, and called me up to complain about Matt and talk to me about why Rachel-”

“Ugh, Danno.” Steve groans, his tone half amused, half complaint.

Danny admits to himself that he might’ve, maybe, sorta gone off track a little there. “Anyways, first thing she’s gonna want to do after getting a lei is grill you about your life until it has those nice little hash marks. So you better be prepared for her to coddle you to death, because she likes you better than Rachel already without even meeting you. Though mostly because Rachel divorced me and you haven’t and she’s under the impression that we might kind of-” Danny yawns abruptly and entirely loses his train of thought. “Anyways, babe, I’m going back to sleep. And if I-” Without meaning to he leans against Steve, words trailing off into a mumble as he does, actually, go back to sleep.

Steve eases him down across his lap and stares down at him, stroking his back until Danny disappears from the blue jungle and it’s time to go again.   
  
And if he’s a little smug in the morning? Well, it’s not like he doesn’t have reason this time. His Danno came for him again. _To the blue jungle!_ And if Danno’s a little extra bleary-eyed when he finally drags himself out of his bed? Steve doesn’t say anything, just solicitously offers coffee made just the way Danno likes it.

Danny gives him a look of squinting suspicion, not at all allayed by Steve’s innocent smile. “What’s this for, babe?”

“Gotta have you awake so you can file that restraining order, right, Danno?”

Danny chokes on his coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> Danny and Steve are both wrong.
> 
> Danny is not, technically, a Guide.
> 
> It doesn’t make sense to me that a gene/gift would just spontaneously and consistently pop up in full blown usefulness among an ordinary, ungifted populace. Or that it would go dormant for centuries only to pop up again without some wide scale stimulus, when intervening wars and other events didn’t prompt it to reappear. And while aliens seeding the gift among humanity is an amusing concept to read, the notion makes my head hurt at the utter improbability of it. _(I certainly wouldn’t be inclined to give humanity, of all races, extra ways to cause damage.)_ So Danny is kind of what I figure might logically proceed someone with Guide or Sentinel gifts. Someone whose heart is big and his ability to feel for and care for others is great enough that it actually touches the mystic plane just slightly. But not so much that he can step into it without someone like Steve dragging him in.
> 
> I figure he gets it from his mom. She probably dreams of blue sometimes, but never had anyone like Steve to pull her into it far enough to see the blue jungle. If she’d married someone with a similar gift, her kids probably would have been Guides or Sentinels, but her husband is very Mundane, so it was not to be.
> 
> But, technically, Danny is Steve’s Guide. He’s close enough to being one that Steve can and does successfully use him as one. As a result, he gets drawn into the blue jungle sometimes, and as long as he’s touching Lunatic, it’s as ‘real’ to him as it is to Steve.
> 
> On another note, Denning makes it clear that he can’t just ban Steve’s mother from the islands for being a bitch _(although he sympathizes)_.
> 
> The SGC, however, has more power over the situation and motivation to act. Along with the restraining order that prevents her from coming within 30ft of either Steve or Danny and bans her from stepping foot onto Steve’s property or coming in the house, they deliver a warning that any Sentinel or Guide death that has the slightest suspicion of not being natural anywhere in her vicinity will see her thoroughly investigated as the first suspect. This threat _(and the restraining order)_ is delivered by a little Mundane woman with a sweet face and a sweeter smile, who is backed up by a very threatening Sentinel/Guide pair accompanied by their spirit animals: a very impressive Saltwater crocodile and a rather large Spotted Hyena, who looks like it thinks she might be tasty.
> 
> She actually has enough self-preservation instinct to take the threat seriously, but she’d be mortified to know that she has underestimated and that the little Mundane woman is the most dangerous of the trio. The SGC has several similar teams that they use to deliver warnings to the more significant potential threats to their Sentinels and Guides, as a preventive measure. It usually works.
> 
> _(Gags the muse.)_ This is what happens when I’m too sleepy to jot down a 200 word piece and I think about it too long and it grows, and then decides to fight me, and I end up thinking about the world too much while figuring out how to fix it. Oops.
> 
> Again, I have not watched the series. It's entirely possible that Steve's mother is nowhere near this bad.
> 
> I know it's rough, no need to tell me.  
> Editing comments and other comments are fine, but please be gentle.


End file.
